As you might have noticed, I found the blog for June 9 that I thought I had lost, so posted the original yesterday. Don’t know where it went, where it has been and how it showed up!
Have had a busy week. After Andy’s friends left, we cleaned house and did laundry to get ready for Evan’s visit. Evan is my son who lives in New York. Have I ever mentioned that one load of wash takes two hours and fifteen minutes to cycle? Gets the clothes clean…but is really hard on the clothes. The washers are supposed to be energy efficient. We will see when we get our electric bill. Evan arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I met him at the Metro stop near our house. He had been in Barcelona for five days at a music festival and was cross-eyed tired. We had dinner downstairs and visited awhile and he went to sleep. On Monday, he and I went to Torre Argentina to see my cat who was again hiding in the ruins. Then we walked to the Ghetto and had lunch. From there, we wandered the streets and ended up at the Pantheon. Facing the Pantheon, on the right is a street and at the end of the block is a gelato, frozen yogurt place that has pink grapefruit frozen yogurt. Wow! Is it good! We got some and sat on the wall of the Pantheon to eat it. Got to talking to a lovely couple from England. Wife asked if we had any idea where the Pantheon was, not realizing they were sitting on the west wall of it. Turns out, they are from Shrewsbury…a town I have stayed in twice. Once in 1980 and again in 1981. They have a B&B there, and I hope to visit one day. Then, Evan and I walked home. He and I went to eat at an all you can eat Japanese restaurant. I liked it…he didn’t. But, when you eat pizza and pasta enough, anything different is delicious!
On Tuesday, we had a quiet morning at home, then went to Piazza Barbarini to meet our tour of the Catacombs, St. Clemente church and the Bone Church. This tour was excellent, and I would recommend it highly! First, we bussed to the Appian Way, one of the most ancient roads in Rome where St. Cecelia’s catacombs are located. The burial grounds in Ancient Rome were built outside the city walls because the Romans were very afraid of ghosts and they believed the dead bodies wandered around at night. There are hundreds of Catacombs around Rome, but only 5 are open to the public. The others are either not excavated enough or are dangerous. We went into a section that housed the remains of pagans and early Christians and the remains of 16 ancients pope’s or Saints. The have found 9 of the 16 popes. You would know that someone very important was buried in a spot because the floor would be paved with marble and there would be beautiful frescoes on the walls around the tombs. The air supply in these chambers would last for only about thirty minutes, so the artists would have to make many trips up and down to paint. Also, writings have been found that tell of the 16 popes buried here. The catacombs here were named after a woman named Cecelia whose remains were found here. A beautiful marble statue has been comissioned by a woman named Cecelia from New York depicting how the original Cecelia’s body was found. After we finished this tour, we went to St. Clemente church. Andy and I had been there a couple of months earlier, but with no guide, we had no idea what we were seeing. I will continue later with the story of this amazing place.